A few weeks ago you offered a ton of wonderful suggestions about what to do with a whole chicken when it was too hot to turn on the oven. At the time I was craving this recipe for Zingerman's One-Pot Chicken but I have been forced to bide my time. Of course in Minnesota it always gets colder than you expect it will, sooner than you want it to and the upside is I finally got to make this recipe. And it is not the chicken I was so excited about it... it was the bread. The breeeeaaaaaaaad. Good grief but the bread part of this dish is amazing.

This is more of an autumn/winter recipe but it was fifty degrees here on Saturday so I went with it. Zingerman's One Pot Roasted Chicken

Preheat oven to 375°. Butterfly chicken (ask the guy behind the meat counter to do this for you or it is east to do yourself: just cut along both sides of the backbone with a pair of kitchen shears .) Rub both sides of the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt and black pepper. Set aside.

In a cast-iron skillet, heat olive oil until hot and then add the celery and onion. Saute about ten minutes. Stir in lemon zest, salt, garlic, pepper, thyme and red pepper flakes and cook another five minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add parsley.

Place bread in a single, tight layer in the now empty skillet. Spread onion/celery mixture on top of the bread. Put butterflied chicken on top and pour lemon juice over it. Roast for 60-90 minutes until thigh registers 160°.

Notes: I originally got the link from alittle Julie and I am in her debt. It's a great combination of flavors and textures. I have had to play around with the red pepper amounts. Sometimes it has been overwhelmingly spicy and sometimes a little bland. Just so you know.

Wow....I think it's cool enough right now that I could actually make that. It sounds wonderful. Our favorite/standard roast chicken is the Barbara Kafka 500 degree chicken with potatoes thrown in the pan as well.....although I sometimes turn the temperature down to 450-475 so it doesn't smoke so much! The potatoes end up rich with chicken juices much as I imagine that bread does....man that bread looks fantastic!!!

I'm REALLY enjoying this blog...of course I adore your other one as well.... I think your kids are much better eaters than mine unfortunately.....someday though, someday....

This is a variation on Hungarian chicken stew. I usually make it in a dutch oven and cook for a couple hours, but it’s just as easily done in a slow cooker (at least six hours, I guess). What makes this distinctive is its lightness and fragrance from the paprika, the caraway seeds and the bay leaves. The smaller you cut the vegetables, the more they will dissolve to make a thick soup (if kiddies don’t like chunks). It’s incredibly healthy, but then if you can afford to load on sour cream and enjoy with thick bread or noodles…. yum
* 1½ pounds chicken, cubed
* 2 onions chopped
* 3 cloves garlic, chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried garlic
* 2 cups water
* 2 cups chicken broth
* 1 cup canned stewed tomatoes
* 2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika (or more to taste, fresh if you can get it) If you like spicy, add some hot paprika as well
* 2 bay leaves
* 2 potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes (or baby potatoes)
* 2 carrots, cut into ½-inch slices
* 1 stalk celery, diced
* 2 green peppers, diced
* cup or more cabbage leaves, cut into small pieces
* 1 T Caraway seeds or to taste
* Salt and pepper, to taste

Put everything except the rice in crock pot and cook on low all day (or on high for four hours). At night when you get home from work (or just before you're ready to eat), add 2 cups of minute rice, let cook 5-10 minutes, and serve with salad with Zesty Italian dressing, and French bread.

Saute onions and garlic, add the rest and simmer until chicken shreds and sauce thickens

Serve with package of just-add-water corn bread and shredded cheese. Easy and yummy.

I swear I make this once a week during the cold season. I also recommend Food and Wine Magazine's book, "Quick, from scratch one dish meals" the seafood stew and roasted chicken with asparagus and potatoes are also favorites.

Looks absolutely delicious. I have never come across butterflied chicken before. Apologies if this is a stupid question and totally obvious but why do you need to do it for this recipe? Would it be ok to just leave the chicken whole? And when you do butterfly it do you need to spread it out flat- ie separate the two halves?

made this dish on Saturday night for some friends and it was delicious. I did it in a roasting pan rather than a skillet as i wasn't convinced that my skillet was ovenproof. The only problem was, the bread didn't look toasted and brown like yours does in the picture, but a bit more soggy (although it still tasted very good)
Any thoughts? Did you toast yours first before putting it in the pan or did it just go like that from the roasting?

I just checked back on this post because I'm going to try to make this tonight....and thought I'd add my favorite one pot meal. I put a pound of dried chickpeas in the crockpot, a box or two of chicken stock or several cans, a whole chicken, salt and pepper. I cook it until the chicken is starting to fall apart. Pull the chicken bones out and just before eating stir in a bag or two of baby spinach. It doesn't sound like much but it's one of those 'the sum is greater than the parts' kind of things. People always ask me what spices I have in it....it just all come together beautifully into a chicken/chickpea/spinach stew....

I made this tonight for dinner and it was the perfect combination of flavors and textures and, oh wait, you already said that. Well, we totally agree. I'm just upset that it wasn't until halfway though dinner that I ate the chicken WITH the bread (one would think it would be obvious).

The two separate components are good, but together they are transcendent.

The cast-iron pan really helps with the browning. I got mine at Target for $15 and although it is still at the stage that it needs some babying (wash gently, re-oil, dry in a low oven) it is worth it. A very handy pan to have, I think

I too made the Zingerman's one pot. It was lovely but I had to do it in a ceramic dish as we foreigns do not have this skillet thing. Well I do but not big enough and my metal roasting pan was too big. So the bread didn't go crispy but it was all very delicious and I toasted the leftover bread next day so got the full effect in the end.

Tracy's comment re not whole chicken - I think it would work perfectly well with chicken pieces, so long as they were fairly snug fit in the pan / dish / receptacle of choice.